Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup

Quote of the Week:Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can – if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong – to explain it. Richard Feynman Number of the Week: Greater than 15, yet less than 1

9th International Conference on Climate Change

July 7 – 9 — Las Vegas, Nevada

Includes the Findings of the New Report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) Climate Change Reconsidered II

A message from S. Fred Singer, PhD
Chairman, Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
We are excited to be once again co-sponsoring an International Conference on Climate Change ICCC-9 will be the ninth such assembly of nearly 1000 skeptics from all over the world These climate realists do not doubt the existence of climate change itself, but are skeptical of the simple-minded proposal to stop the climate from changing — or even to slow the process significantly — by replacing coal and oil to generate electric power and run cars with expensive and intermittent wind and solar energy …
Scientific data demonstrate convincingly that global temperatures have not risen for the past 15 or more years in spite of the measured ten percent rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Yet politicians and many scientists influenced by politics continue to ignore the overwhelming importance of natural causes of global warming and cooling; they –and not skeptical scientists — are the real deniers, The observed facts will always win out over artificial manmade theoretical models attempting to simulate the real climate on computers.
On behalf of the board of directors of SEPP, I congratulate The Heartland Institute for organizing ICCC-9 and for its many important publications about climate change – especially the series of reports “Climate Change Reconsidered” written by scientists of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) , available at http://www.NIPCCreport.org. We also thank the Chinese Academy of Sciences for translating and publishing some of these reports.

SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD

THE JACKSON

The nominations and voting has ended. The results will be announced at the conference of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in July.

THIS WEEK:By Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)Temperature Tiff: The controversy in the climate blogs about the surface temperature record as reported by the US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) in conjunction with the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) appears to be ending. The main issues include: data adjustments for missing data, the moving of recording stations, the disappearance of recording stations and did Tom Heller, who blogs under the name Steve Goddard, use inappropriate methodology to state that the historic record has been distorted and there has been no appreciable warming trend in the US surface record since the 1930s?
The motivations of the government professional who maintain the records should not be an issue. However, press releases claiming May 2014 is the hottest May ever since the record started in 1880, without explaining the lack of consistency in the record, is very much at issue. Anthony Watts (WUWT) explains his role in the controversy in a way that is worthy of emulation. Joe D’Aleo (ICECAP) discusses stations that are no longer reporting temperatures, but continue in the record with estimates, not measurements, of temperatures. D’Aleo calls these zombie stations. Paul Homewood (Not a Lot of People Know) reports on major adjustments, apparently unwarranted, to a station in Luling Texas. The net effect was a significant cooling of 1934 temperatures as compared with 2013.
All this brings into question the consistency of the US surface temperature record, which is considered among the best in the world. The controversy illustrates why the satellite record of atmospheric temperatures should be the standard for estimating temperature trends. The satellite record is far more comprehensive, it is reported by two independent groups, and is independently confirmed by weather balloon data. It is not sensitive to changes in land use, such as urbanization, and it is in the atmosphere where the greenhouse effect takes place.
To further complicate the issue, Anthony Watts reports that NOAA has quietly changed the hottest month on record for the US back to July 1936, from July 2012. See links under Measurement Issues – Surface Temperatures

Statistical Significance: In a related issue, Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) states that: “we are unable to demonstrate a statistically significant change in surface temperatures because of the difficulty in defining a statistical model that would describe the normal behaviour {British spelling] of surface temperatures, a claim that seems to have the support of the Met Office. I don’t know of any other metric in which a statistically significant change has been demonstrated.”
Montford explores the concept that the instrumental surface temperature record is too short to recognize if temperatures are out of the ordinary. The issue of statistical significance of the record depends upon a suitable statistical model of earth’s natural temperature variations – something that has not been developed.
A proper statistically model may require temperature variation over the Holocene (about the past 11,700 years). If so, the entire global warming issue would be minimized. Geologists, and others, report that the temperature variation during the Holocene was greater than temperature variation since the Little Ice Age and that there were a number of periods warmer than today. Montford’s assertion calls into question the numerous papers that calculate a statistical probability in order to claim current temperatures are unusual. See links under Questioning the Orthodoxy, Seeking a Common Ground, and Measurement Issues — Statistics

Coral Reefs: Die-back of coral reefs have been called proof that human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW) is destructive to the environment. We now have three more reports demonstrating that human influence can be destructive, but it is not from a warming, whether or not a human cause can be established. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, released a study on coral reefs in the Caribbean, and found a more than 50% decline in the coral cover from 1970 to 2012. Further, it reported the reefs may disappear within the next 20 years. Alarmists emphasized the disappearance, but ignored the title of the report which emphasized the decline can be reversed, if proper steps are taken. The decline is principally attributed to an overfishing of parrotfish and sea urchins, which feed on algae. The decline in these animal populations has resulted in a growth in algae, which smothers the coral. Another contributing cause is coastal pollution.
In addressing global warming the report states: “There is a weak but insignificant negative correlation between changes in coral cover and number of (DHWs) [degree heating weeks], regardless of whether the data were analyzed for each warming event or combined or whether we included all the localities or restricted to only localities that experienced at least 8 DHWs. Moreover, the greatest losses coral cover occurred of reef locations with less than 8 DHWs.” (pp 18-19)
A paper reviewed by NIPCC found that coastal pollution, not temperatures, is causing a decline in the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. Another paper reviewed by NIPCC analyzed natural temperature variation from the El Niño Southern Oscillation and stated this may cause a change in composition of life on the coral reefs off Brazil, but reefs remain healthy. See links under Changing Seas and NIPCC Reports.

Earth Tremors: A flurry of newspaper and other reports occurred stating that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for oil and gas is causing minor earthquakes in the US. These reports were not accurate. A study released in January by the US Geological Survey (USGS) attributed an increase in minor earthquakes in Oklahoma to the injection of waste water into rock formations. This is a separate issue from the processes used to extract oil and gas.
Disposal of water from geological formations has long been an issue for the oil and gas industry. Waste water from fracking adds to it. This is an issue properly addressed by local officials and the oil and gas industry. See links under Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?

Climate-Smart Development? The World Bank and ClimateWorks [sic] Foundation published a joint report titled “Climate-Smart Development: Adding up the benefits of actions that help build prosperity, end poverty and combat climate change.” It contains some useful proposals, such developing of cleaner stoves in China. Such stoves would significant improve indoor air, and health, in many parts of the globe.
However, there are a number of questionable assertions in the report which give rise for concern. It uses the now trendy term “climate pollutants”, and includes carbon dioxide (CO2). It lists methane, carbon black, atmospheric ozone, and some hydrofluorocarbons as “short-lived climate pollutants” and asserts these are responsible for 40% of the current warming (which is no longer occurring. The report references the 2012 World Bank report: “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided.” The 2012 report uses the high end of the estimates of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) of warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, or equivalents. As the disparity between temperature forecasts from the models and atmospheric temperature observations increases, these high numbers are increasingly doubtful. Perhaps the new report will be a useful guide for improving the lives those in poverty, but, it is how programs are executed that is the deciding factor. See links under Expanding the Orthodoxy.

Questionable Papers: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper of questionable value. It claimed that heat, not natural disasters, will force people to move. The conclusions were based on a study of moves by 7,000 households over a 15 year period – located in Indonesia. Indonesia straddles the equator with latitude ranging from about 10 degrees S to 5 degrees N. To make generalizations from this study is absurd.
Las Vegas, Nevada is the site of the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change. Census data shows it population grew from 165,000 in 1980 to 583,000 in 2010. The average July high temperature is about 106 deg F. No doubt, most people moved to Las Vegas from a cooler climate. Could it be claimed that heat causes people to move to warmer climates?
Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University is a co-author of the paper. He is a major influence in the IPCC and in Princeton’s climate model that does not accurately forecast temperatures. See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.

Past Famine: The National Science Foundation funded and published a paper on population changes in the US Southwest from 500 to about 1300. The population grew as farming, needing irrigation, grew. Then it crashed. This finding is not particularly new. Other research suggests that the population crash was the result of a major drought. Strangely, the article does not discuss the drought and is written in a way to imply overpopulation was the cause of the population crash.
What is particularly disturbing is that the article suggests modern civilization will soon suffer the consequences of overpopulation. It is the use of fossil fuels that has freed modern civilization from subsistence farming. A prolonged drought in modern countries may cause changes in food production, but it is doubtful if it would cause a population crash. The real fear is a major cooling period, which would limit production in upper latitudes, particularly the northern latitudes.

Number of the Week:( Greater than 15, yet less than 1. The Congressional Budget Office produced a report with a stunning graph – “Projected Use of Cellulosic Biofuels, Compared With the Use Mandated by the Renewable Fuel Standard”. It shows that by 2022 the law mandates that about 15 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuels must be used. But, the Energy Information Administrates projects that less than 1 billion gallons will be produced. A Washington mandate is not sufficient to make something feasible. Is the next step to issue a mandate that wind power be reliable? See link under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy – Other.

Social Benefits of Carbon

Problems in the Orthodoxy

Data Deleted From UN Climate Report Highlight Controversies
New papers debate limitations in international agreements
By Brian Howard, National Geographic, Jul 3, 2014http://news.nationalgeographic.com/…
Link to paper: IPCC lessons from Berlin ($$$)
By Brad Wible, Science, Jul 4, 2014http://www.sciencemag.org/content/3…CORRECTED-Australia sees limited G20 appetite on new climate change steps
By Randall Palmer, Reuters, Jul 2, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.reuters.com/article/2014…India to strengthen climate change negotiation team
By Staff Writers, Times of India, Jun 30, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…Act Locally, Wish Globally
Proposed carbon-emission cuts would hobble the U.S. economy but do nothing for global levels.
By Kevin D. Williamson, National Review Online, Jun 23, 2014 [H/t Timothy Wise]http://www.nationalreview.com/artic…Leading insurer to close its climate change office, leaving the industry ‘mute’
By Evan Lehmann, E&E, Jun 27, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.eenews.net/stories/10600…
Zurich Insurance Group is closing its U.S. climate change office six years after opening it to help persuade companies to press public officials for solutions to climbing disaster losses, according to several sources.
Zurich’s decision comes amid a flush of visibility for the office and its director, Lindene Patton, who in recent months helped write the National Climate Assessment, testified before a Senate panel and spoke at the White House.[SEPP Comment: The US National Climate Assessment is an alarmist document that fails to give solid evidence supporting its claims. It does not even distinguish between natural and human causes.]

Review of Recent Scientific Articles by NIPCC

For a full list of articles see

http://www.NIPCCreport.org…Modelling Drought Throughout the World
Reference: Trenberth, K.E., Dai, A., van der Schrier, G., Jones, P.D., Barichivich, J., Briffa, K.R. and Sheffield, J. 2014. Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change 4: 17-22.http://nipccreport.org/articles/201…
Trenberth et al. ultimately conclude “it is probably not possible to determine reliable decadal and longer-term trends in drought due to climate change without first accounting for the effects of ENSO and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation,” the former of which phenomena they describe as “the most common source of episodic droughts around the world.” Thus, it would appear there are still numerous significant problems that need to be resolved before the desired results can be obtained. And until this occurs, drought predictions should be looked at with a very jaundiced eye.What Is the Greatest Threat to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef?
Reference: Bell, P.R.F., Elmetri, I. and Lapointe, B.E. 2014. Evidence of large-scale chronic eutrophication in the Great Barrier Reef: Quantification of chlorophyll a thresholds for sustaining coral reef communities. Ambio 43: 361-376.http://nipccreport.org/articles/201…Responses of Emergent Intertidal Coral Reefs to a Strong El-Niño
Reference: Kelmo, F., Bell, J.J., Moraes, S.S., Gomes, R.C.T., Mariano-Neto, E. and Attrill, M.J. 2014. Differential responses of emergent intertidal coral reef fauna to a large-scale El-Niño Southern Oscillation Event: Sponge and coral resilience. PLOS ONE 9: e93209.http://nipccreport.org/articles/201…The Upside of a CO2-Induced Decrease in Plant Nutritive Value
Reference: Yin, J., Sun, Y. and Ge, F. 2014. Reduced plant nutrition under elevated CO2 depresses the immunocompetence of cotton bollworm against its endoparasite. Scientific Reports 14: 10.1038/srep04538.http://nipccreport.org/articles/201…

Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice

Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine

GM crops are good for the environment
Fighting pests with genes is better than fighting them with sprays
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, Jul 2, 2014http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blo…
And it’s gambling with charitable donations! It [Greenpeace] makes Goldman Sachs look like the Angel Gabriel.

Un-Science or Non-Science?

Claim: Putting a price tag on the 2°C climate target no more expensive than fossil fuels
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Jul 3, 2014https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/…
Link to paper: Energy Investments Under Climate Policy; A Comparison of Global Models
By McCollum, et al., Climate Change Economics, Jun 4, 2014http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/…[SEPP Comment: The models used. Integrated Assessment Models (IAM), are based on climate models, which have not been validated. Climate models are forecasting far greater warming than observations show. The results of the IAM models can be no more reliable than the results of the climate models.]

Questioning European Green

Green energy cost hits record high as expensive turbines built at sea
Annual bill for consumers to subsidise renewable technologies has soared to more than £2.5bn as more plants are built and the cost for each unit of electricity rises
By Emily Gosden and James Kirkup, Telegraph, UK, Jun 28, 2014http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en…Green energy budget faces squeeze as power prices forecast to stay flat this decade
Ratings agency Moody’s becomes the latest expert voice to question the Government’s forecast of rising power prices
By Emily Gosden, Telegraph, UK, Jul 2, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/…

Green Jobs

Non-Green Jobs

Shale-Rich Texas Set to Overtake Opec Major Iraq in Oil Production
By Jerin Mathew, International Business Times, Jul 3, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/texas-shal…U.S. Fracking Has ‘Cut Carbon More Than The Whole World’s Wind And Solar’
By Staff Writers, Oil and Gas Online, Jun 30, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.oilandgasonline.com/doc/…[SEPP Comment: By cutting CO2, could fracking be considered a green industry?]

Funding Issues

Paris pact hinges on successful $100 bn Green Climate Fund: Javadekar to French minister
Tells the Green Funds should be used to buy out IPRs of clean technologies to distribute to poor countries
By Nitin Sethi, Business Standard (India), Jul 2, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.business-standard.com/ar…

Other Scientific News

Other News that May Be of Interest

Second coming of Nigel Lawson: The former Chancellor on fracking, global warming and why David Cameron has blown it in Europe
Three decades after his glory years as Margaret Thatcher’s longest-serving Chancellor, the irrepressible Lord Lawson is revelling in his political twilight
By Jane Merrick, Independent, UK, Jun 29, 2014 [H/t GWPF]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p…

Given that Climate Scientist know that the ‘science’ that they produce is used for the formation of policy, don’t Climate Scientist owe a duty of care to all those who may be adversely affected by policy which governments introduce based upon the ‘science’ being put forward to governments by those Climate Scientist.

The quote from Feynman is apposite. This is my biggest gripe. I can accept the science being wrong, and scientist making errors. It is the dishonesty that concerns me, that dishonesty being the claims of too much certainty arising out of over extrapolation of flawed data sets, which have significant but not properly acknowledged error bandwidths.

SEPP ==> This = “The decline is principally attributed to an overfishing of parrotfish and sea urchins…” is a misstatement. The parrotfishes have been overfished but the sea urchins experienced an unexplained die-off around 1983 (? – think I got that date right) — they were not overfished.

I second that Kip! As for the paywall, why not support one of the few papers that generally are skeptical of carbonmania. They are all struggling ( newspapers) so I willingly support those who more often than not give a balanced view… It doesn’t cost much more than a round of golf. (Which I just finished…81 thank you very much)

Perhaps not as newsworthy as some developments this week, I do have an announcement that may be of interest to some.

Though a backwater of hive-studies, perhaps, I have heretofore pursued, as the specialty area of my scholarly endeavors, an extended investigation of the Deltoid-blog. And, not to brag, but it was my continuing inquiries into the Deltoid-blog that uncovered the previously-unsuspected leading-role that “excarnation” plays in the hive’s burial rituals. And that discovery–again, not to toot my own horn too loudly–then served to answer the “Big Question” that had previously plagued my fellow Deltoid-blog researchers: Why has the hive chosen to display Deltoid’s grisly remains, in full view of the public, rather than giving Deltoid a decent and dignified interment?

I recall all this because this comment is likely to be my valedictory report on the Deltoid-blog. You see, I’ve just perused Deltoid’s July 2014 “Open Thread” and have observed no activity of note. Yes, one might spot, now-and-then, a few, stray carrion-feeders–and those, the most primitive of the life-form–scuttling about the blog’s post-mortem rot. But nothing to pique the interest of a veteran investigator, like moi, who can recall Deltoid’s glory-days, when Deltoid-land was a-teem with the pick of the eco-elite’s top-predator, pack-attack, motor-mouth hive-bozos. But they are all gone now. And who ever suspected that the “Deltoid Dead-Enders” had a gag-reflex, finally, anyway? One last, sad, little factoid-discovery on which to end my scholarly labors.

In other words, I am bidding my Deltoid-blog studies farewell and seeking new worlds for that simplest of reasons, best caught in words of George Saunder’s famous exit-line: “I’m bored.”